16 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



weak colonies, etc. I have taken about 

 2,000 lbs of honey, and have 28 stocks for 

 winter. This makes the third year that I 

 have tried to get box lioney; I got about 

 125 tt)S and lost more than I made in the 

 operation, in my opinion ; for whenever I 

 tried to confine my bees down to work in 

 boxes, they would invariably swarm when 

 the boxes were about half full, and that 

 would spoil that stock for box honey. 



I had hives with 12 frames, the frames 

 12x16, and a 30 lb box on top; still they 

 swarmed; they kept swarming up, until 

 about the 12th of Sept. 



If my bees had taken such a swarming 



fever in June, I do not know where my 



increase of stocks would have stopped, as 



it was, I did all I knew how to prevent it. 



Ed Wellington. 



Riverton, Iowa, Oct. 11, 1875. 



For the American Bee Journaj. 



My Success in 1875. 



I have been taking the American Bee 

 Journal for 7 years, and I have Laug- 

 stroth, Quinby, Mitchell, King, and have 

 read nearly all the bee literature in the 

 country, been in company and conversed 

 with some of the best apiarist in our 

 country. I thought I was pretty scientific 

 on that subject, but other business had al- 

 ways prevented any application of my 

 science to the business. 



However this season I thought I would 

 apply what knowledge I had, and see if I 

 could perform the various manipulations 

 so essential in bee-keeping, and without 

 the successful performance of which no 

 man could claim to be a successful and 

 scientific apiarist, and possibly I might 

 attain some of those marvellous results 

 which i had often read of, but had never 

 seen. 



I got my bees Italianized last fall, and 

 succeeded partially; I commenced last 

 spring with 13 hives: 8 full bloods, 2 

 hybrids, 1 black and 2 queenless stocks. 

 First job in order was to supply my 

 queenless stocks with queens, which I did 

 by giving them full frames of brood in all 

 stages from my best Italian stocks. I 

 succeeded finely, and here it would be 

 well enough to state that I use the Lang- 

 strolh hive, and I never have lost a colony 

 of bees while wintering it in a Langstrotii 

 hive on its summer stand in Mo. 



About this time I tliought I had per- 

 formed all I had ever read of, excej)t i-ais- 

 ing queens; being a carpenter and joiner, 

 it was no trouble for me to make liives, 

 so I made nuclei hives and coinmeuced 

 rearing queens. I began with six and 

 reared every one. So I now conclude I 

 am something of a bee-keeper. 



Our locality like all others in the 

 Western States suffered terribly by an un- 

 commonly wet spring, and delayed all 

 bee keeping operations. In fact, they 



nearly starved to death, were weaker in 

 bees on the first of July than they were 

 on the first of March, and totally destitute 

 of stores, making their daily food from 

 day to day. 



About the 10th of July fair weather and 

 flowers came, and bees began to gain 

 rapidly. In the fore part of the season I 

 had increased seven stocks, part natural, 

 part artificial. On the sixth day of 

 August swarming commenced again in 

 earnest, and from that time till the 18th 

 day of September swarming was an al- 

 most daily occurrence. On the morning 

 of the 18th a severe frost visited this 

 county and the honey season closed, (on 

 the 21st a swarm came ofl', the latest I 

 ever knew, I put it in a nail keg; it re- 

 mained a few days, and then decamped, it 

 could make no honey.) My 13 stocks in- 

 creased to 43. Most of them in good 

 condition for wintering, but such a great 

 increase was detrimental to surplus honey. 

 I got none. 



When frost came, on the 18th, my bees 

 were never doing better, and if frost had 

 only held ofl', as it usually does here, and 

 as it did in the western part of the state 

 till October 18th, an immense yield of 

 honey would have resulted. I never saw 

 such a profusion of flowers in my life, 

 hundreds of acres ot aster, golden-rod, 

 heart's-ease, smart weed, and many other 

 kinds nameless to me. The fields in many 

 places looked like seas of gold. 



The three best honey plants are aster, 

 golden rod and buckwheat. We have all 

 kinds of fruit blossoms, white clover, 

 basswood, and I believe every plant and 

 flower and shrub common to the western 

 states in this latitude 39 deg. I call this 

 a good bee country. John Barfoot. 



Montgomery Co., Mo., Nov. 20, 1875. 



■< • >■ ■ 



For the American Bee Journal, 

 How it Was Accomplislied, 



Dear Editor. — I see in the October 

 number of the American Bee Journal 

 a request by a correspondent, that those 

 bee men making the largest report of 

 honey, etc., for the season, would give 

 their method of management. It would 

 seem that I am am<ing those referred to. 

 One word in correction ; it might be in- 

 ferred from reading my report that I got 

 my comb honej^ from the 38 swarms, 

 run with the extractor, but I did not. 

 It was all comb honey, that I got from 

 the balance of my apiary. My mode 

 of operating was with the Hif/h Pressure 

 Hive, mentionedin the Junemui-ber. Breed- 

 up in the spring in long low brood cham- 

 bers to the full capacity of the queen, un- 

 til I have a stock large enough to divide. 

 I then operate witli the extractor, in the 

 low form, or divide into two swarms and 

 run each division with a super and upper 

 tier of frames or cards, or I can lift one 



